Orson Scott Card: Thoughtcriminal

Orson Scott Card is one of the best-selling science fiction writers alive. He is also a devout Mormon who opposes same-sex marriage. A group of pro-gay comics fans is up in arms over the fact that DC has hired Card to write a new Superman series. The Guardian is making it sound like a huge deal:

“Superman stands for truth, justice and the American way. Orson Scott Card does not stand for any idea of truth, justice or the American way that I can subscribe to,” said Jono Jarrett of Geeks Out, a gay fan group. “It’s a deeply disappointing and frankly weird choice.”

A film of Ender’s Game, co-produced by Card and starring Harrison Ford, is set to be released in November. Jarrett speculated DC was hoping pre-publicity for the movie would drive sales for the comic.

“I feel like they were hoping that no one will notice. It’s a free country, and what’s important is what we do here. This is a man who wants to take away my civil rights, and I will not be giving him my money,” said Jarrett.

Actor Michael Hartney, who describes himself as “as big a Superman fan as you’ll ever meet”, has written to DC voicing his concerns about Card.

“If this was a Holocaust denier or a white supremacist, there would be no question. Hiring that writer would be an embarrassment to your company. Well, Card is an embarrassment to your company, DC,” he wrote in a letter also published on Tumblr.

Fortunately, a gay comic writer quoted in the piece understands that blacklisting Card is offensive:

Dale Lazarov, a gay comic writer, said it was counterproductive to attack Card’s appointment: “I’ve known Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe since the early 90s. I refuse to buy or read his work. But asking that he be denied work because he is a raging homophobe is taking it too far. Asking for workplace discrimination for any reason is counterproductive for those who want to end discrimination on their own behalf.”

True enough. What does Card’s view on homosexuality have to do with Superman? This is about trying to punish Card for thoughtcrime.

Incidentally, as the reader who sent this item in points out, it’s telling and inadvertently funny that The Guardian called Card “a noted anti-gay writer” in its lede. This tells us more about the fixations of Guardian writers than it does about Card. I don’t read science fiction, but if I did, I wouldn’t care what Card’s cultural politics were, unless they showed up in his fiction and were preachy — in other words, if his politics caused him to make bad art. It is entirely possible that Card is a first-rate artist, but a political dunderhead. Only political dunderheads, though, would condemn his art because of his political views, and it takes a true McCarthyite cretin to try to convince a publisher to deny the man work because of his political views.

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133 Responses to Orson Scott Card: Thoughtcriminal

icarusr wrote: “A particular viewpoint that is based, in part, on religion/dogma and in part on deep bigotry and ignorance – see Heather, above –”

What icarusr is not capable of seeing is that his views on homosexuality are based exactly on dogma and deep ignorance (“it is because I say so”). This in turn produces deep bigotry against anyone who doesn’t share his views and he has no qualms about causing them harm whenever he feels like it.

Contrary to what icarusr claims, it didn’t take much persuasion to convince a large swath of American society that there is nothing wrong with adultery, porn, promiscuity, and homosexuality – they were dying to hear it in the first place. This kind of ideology gives people a free pass to be as dysfunctional as they like and to do harm and think they are “good.” What more could they ask for?

As someone noted in another thread, anyone who transgresses any kind of moral boundary regarding sexuality is seen as “evolving” by liberals. The only minor exception is pedophilia, but only if you really push it in pre-pubescent categories, otherwise, for teenagers, it’s being increasingly normalized as well.

icarusr: “But if Heather is my employer, and spews her idiotic psychobabble to prove that I am suffering from some sort of violent dysfunction* because I love a man and not a woman, well, damned right I will sue her and damned right she should suffer.”

Sue for what? Thought crime? Freedom of expression? Sue me for having knowledge on sexual psychology that you don’t have? Sue me for questioning your idiotic views on sexuality? Sue me for pointing out that you are no authority on the issue of sexuality?

And should people who promote porn have a right to “sue me and to make me suffer” because I question their views too? The people who endorse prostitution, adultery, promiscuity, transmitting deadly STDs with impunity, abortion on demand, age of consent at 13, binge drinking, legalization of hard drugs as well? The pedophiles too?

* Heather never said anything about you suffering from a specifically “*violent* dysfunction.” That is a dishonest claim. On the other hand, does it take a violent dysfunction to claim she did? That’s a good question.

……………………
Scotty said: “If she had uttered similar remarks about blacks–or about Christians–how would this situation be changed?”

If certain students had said they wanted to show porn or perform sexually explicit acts in their prom, and she uttered similar remarks – how would this situation be changed?

An Indiana schoolteacher, who said some rather nasty things about gays (on her own time, at church), including stating that “they have no purpose in life”,will not be disciplined by the public school district which employs her.

Her remarks came in the backdrop of a controversy in the community, in which some members are desiring to stage a “gay-free” prom, which will bar same-sex couples from attending. The proposed prom (if held) will be a private affair, as the school district has indicated they cannot legally exclude students from a school function on the basis of sexuality.

If she had uttered similar remarks about blacks–or about Christians–how would this situation be changed? Again, assume that the remarks are uttered in a forum unrelated to her employment.

Strange as it may seem to you, civil servants have tenure and protection from dismissal derived from their political affiliations. The has been true for federal civil servants since about 1884.

Nearly a generation ago, Engineer Scotty, it was common in public discussion of homosexuality to see the phrase ‘can we talk…’. Some of us thought the question humbug, and we were right. Your counterparts then wanted public discussion, exposure, and self-display. Alright, we talk. We ask what is human sexuality, what is it for, what are the implications of enshrining consumer preference in the realm of human sexuality? Your response is that a civil servant who answers these questions in a way you find uncongenial should be stripped of her job.

Your point also is that people who adhere to conventional norms about how men and women should interact (which do not include men caressing and fawning over each other in public places) are doing something shameful. Two two competing explanations here: one is that societies do not default to multiple sets of public manners. The other is that the tribunes of the homosexual population cannot tolerate resistance (having propagated a mess of rubbish about ‘tolerance’ a generation ago).

Sorry to be blunt, Rod, but posts about this straw man rule of yours and the predictable discussions that follow have become tedious. Ad nauseum, and too often snarky, repetition isn’t making either side’s arguments any stronger or more persuasive. These discussions do have one especially salient effect, though. They appear to shrink everyone’s available pools of civility and charity. Two armed camps talking past each other, but from the number of comments, one would guess it makes for good traffic. Given the qualities of other types of discussion on this blog, that’s unfortunate. And very frustrating.

More humbug. We actually understand each other fairly well. One thing our side understands is that your side is arrogant and abusive.

And how can you tell the difference between someone being anti-SSM, and someone being an anti-gay bigot?

Surely you see at least some of the opponents of SSM as anti-gay bigots, no? Even just one. How do you make the distinction?

As for Card, the small number of gay people complaining about his hiring do not represent gaydom. Most gay people understand that ones beliefs, ones private life, even ones sexual orientation, should have nothing to do with ones employment. Many of us have, in fact, experienced discrimination at work and know that is is unfair.

Now, if he starts writing comic stories about boys being turned gay by sexual abuse — one of his beliefs — then there might be reason to protest.

Surely you see at least some of the opponents of SSM as anti-gay bigots, no? Even just one. How do you make the distinction?

You do not need to bother because that to which you refer – “anti-gay bigot” – is not a coherent concept. There are people in this world who are poisonous and uncharitable, people unwilling to consider evidence and arguments (about homosexuality and dozens of other topics), people who make a hash of thinking about normative questions (that’s most of us). There are several appendices to these phenomena which make these ordinary personal shortcomings unusual in this case:

1. The subject and its manifestation provoke reactions of disgust and (here and again) shunning.

2. A large swath of the bourgeoisie now derives a bizarre quantum of self-satisfaction from holding indulgent views of homosexuality.

3. The signature voices of those in opposition to us bigots are…Dan Savage…Tony Kushner…Larry Kramer.

Sodomy is disgusting, fashion is fashion, and obnoxious and obstreperous elderly adolescents are admired participants in the public square. Guess we are expected to get used to it.

Consequences2: Now if [Card] starts writing stories about boys being turned gay by pedophiles – another of his beliefs – then there would be reason to complain.

Ummm… actually, he’s kind of right about that. Accidentally, ignorantly, through no virtue or effort or insight or knowledge of his own, he blundered into the right answer.

I think my liberal, pro-SSM bona fides have been well proven on Rod’s blog over the years… but this is a sad truth. A considerable portion of the male-male sexual attractions and encounters going on out there are the result of pederasty.

Read up on the literature about male survivors of sexual abuse – or visit discussion boards about that and look for subforums about sexuality. Or talk to pretty much any therapist or social worker with experience with that community. It is extremely common, almost omnipresent. Boys who were molested by other males after initially developing interests in females would suddenly and alarmingly find themselves fantasizing about and real-time re-staging homosexual encounters – when they knew it had never been there before. Boys who got it younger, before puberty and awakening of sexual interests / identity, are just as agonized because they have the same thoughts but don’t know if it was innate or injected. When enough of the psyche is wrapped around imagery and experiences of sex with men, it stays with the survivor and changes their entire sexual identity and interest.

It is a monumentally painful topic to those effected, so if you do read up and ask questions, please do so in a humane and non-gawking manner.

And Card is still a pro-murder has-been, not suited to writing Mr. Myxzptlk’s name.

Excellent, TTT–you encapsulated my views in a nutshell. I think there’s reason to believe that in many cases there is abuse or pathology involved in homosexuality, as you describe; and even when that’s not the case, there’s probably some kind of somatic or psychological aberrations. It’s like the gay writer Jonathan Rauch, who says that in his opinion, being gay is a “minor disability”.

However, to say this is not ipso facto to be anti-gay, anti-SSM, or homophobic. It’s not a contradiction to say that homosexuality is a “mild disability” and that it’s mostly intractable (in most cases, you can’t “cure” a gay orientation), and that therefore it should be tolerated. The only stable situations would seem to be universal and punitive closeting–which even most of the conservatives here are against; or acceptance, which seems to be the wave of the future.

I don’t think SSM will bring about the collapse of civilization (as Card apparently does), and I don’t think the closet is a good thing; therefore, while I don’t see SSM as perfect in the abstract, it’s probably the best thing given the concrete circumstances on the ground. I don’t think that civil SSM even contradicts Catholic doctrine, regardless of what the bishops say. Hell, St. Thomas Aquinas said that prostitution (calling the other thread!) ought not be illegal, since the purpose of government is to keep order, not legislate morality! (If you want to see how he phrased it himself, with analysis thereof, go over here.

Consequences2 – I’m not really sure what you’re disagreeing with, since you grant that “abuse CAN mess with your sexuality.” I never said all gays or same-sex encounters were spurred by abuse, but some of it assuredly is.

As for “vast majorities”: 1 in 5 males experiences sexual abuse. That outnumbers those who are self-identified as gay and would tend to skew the data, if not actually swamping it. To use another metaphor: lots of American men are circumcised but not all of them are Jews, so any study of what happens after a circumcision would feature a lot of non-Jewish circ’ed men swamping the data from Jewish men.

I’ve yet to hear of a case of a female survivor claiming to be gripped by lesbian desires / behavior after abuse by a male, just like there is no trend of boys abused by females finding themselves just as confusingly drawn to sex with men as do those who were abused by men. So you are right to scoff at that odd theory of anti-gay forces; it’s stupid and goes against what the survivors themselves report. Like I said, Card (and John Hagee and others) are right – partially, and by accident. But it can and does happen. All too frequently.

TTT wrote: I’ve yet to hear of a case of a female survivor claiming to be gripped by lesbian desires / behavior after abuse by a male,

They exist. The dynamics may not be the same as when it’s same-sex abuse, but there are survivors who cannot then tolerate being with a man and then disorient towards women, seeking an alternative to that which caused them great harm and unbearable trauma. I have no idea of prevalence, but such cases exist. Some are conscious of what happened to their minds and why they developed a homosexuality problem, others are not.

“Read up on the literature about male survivors of sexual abuse – or visit discussion boards about that and look for subforums about sexuality. Or talk to pretty much any therapist or social worker with experience with that community. ”

If only people who want to normalize homosexuality in the Boy Scouts would care about the harm they want to inflict on vulnerable boys because of their denial that the above is a problem in society.

Granted that it depends on the liberal. However, if normalizing homosexuality causes more same-sex sexual harassment in any given environment, liberals believe that this is not a problem and the normalization of homosexuality takes priority over everything else. No matter how much harm it causes, liberals will stop at nothing with their normalization crusade.

Lastly, liberals have as much blind faith in their APA as many religious people have in whatever religious body they follow. It is a blind faith in authority, a figure of authority to them that tells them something they like to hear.

Science is not blind faith, but practitioners of science are fallible human beings, who often pontificate in support of what they find political preferable, without regard to evidence. I don’t know that there is scientific proof that homosexuality is objectively disordered. I do doubt that there is scientific evidence that is it “normal.” APA has overstepped, but its not directly analogous to religious authority. Saying it is comes across like another Mad Lib.

As a lay person and informed citizen, I find Turmarion’s position more plausible, closer to what might be considered science-based, but loose enough to reflect that we don’t actually know, and in any case, its socially and politically not a reason to isolate or restrain those suffering from this modest disability.

Now, the Indiana school teacher… if she made similar remarks about blacks or Christians, it would be protected speech, EXCEPT if it were deemed likely that she could not hold such views and be an effective teacher of classes that included blacks and Christians. That might be said of her ability to teach classes that included students who were, or thought of themselves as, gay.

Now if she made a nuanced statement, like, homosexuality is objectively disordered, contrary to the nature of human biology and our God-given purpose on earth, but, should any student in my class identify himself as gay, it would pose no conflict to teach him English lit, biology, trigonometry, or whatever, then, unless her behavior in class proved this statement to be a lie, or a self-deception, I can see no reason to fire her.

Should a Roman Catholic teacher be fired for stating (in church) that those not baptized by a Roman Catholic priest were likely to find themselves in Dante’s first circle of hell?

There are objective reasons she could not say that to be black is a disorder. Its not a pattern of behavior, its an epidermal pigment. This hypothetical statement about blacks, and the statement she did make about homosexuality, are not on all fours with each other. Stating publicly that Christians are pathologically psychotic and hallucinating would be yet a third kind of statement, which would need to be evaluated on its own merits.

On the whole, its better she was not fired. But if some of her students were uncomfortable being in her class, knowing the statement she made, that would bear some monitoring.

Heather wrote: “Lastly, liberals have as much blind faith in their APA as many religious people have in whatever religious body they follow. It is a blind faith in authority, a figure of authority to them that tells them something they like to hear.”

Siarlys Jenkins says: Science is not blind faith, … APA has overstepped, but its not directly analogous to religious authority.
===============

People can have blind faith in any kind of science as in anything else.

Most people who quote the APA in support of their views has never *read* science! They can’t evaluate or criticize studies or methodologies, and they do not perform studies themselves.

That is quite blind. It shows that whatever they put forth as a scientific basis for their position is something that they, themselves, are clearly ignorant of. It’s like hearing a mass in Latin, not having any clue of what it says, but believing it must be right nevertheless.

Usually, at most, liberals babble about a study that is reported in the MSM, which has been put into non-scientific language and contains no criticisms or reviews, while still calling the resulting news blurb as SCIENCE (and as if every single study equaled proof of the Truth).

This is blind faith in a declaration made by an authority figure, without the individual in question having the capacity to evaluate the so-called scientific basis and the method used to examine the issue.

Re: However, if normalizing homosexuality causes more same-sex sexual harassment in any given environment, liberals believe that this is not a problem

Oh, good grief, what a load of stinking swill! Liberals do not think sexual harassment is a good thing ever.
This riff of “liberals don’t have morals” (because they have different moral standards than yours) reminds me of the Romans complaining that the Christians were atheists since, hey, they weren’t worshiping the Roman gods. I am trying very not hard to trespass on our host’s standards, as he has chosen to welcome you here in the name of open debate, but your obsession with gays is neither morally nor intellectually healthy.

Re: I think my liberal, pro-SSM bona fides have been well proven on Rod’s blog over the years… but this is a sad truth. A considerable portion of the male-male sexual attractions and encounters going on out there are the result of pederasty.

TTT, what do you mean by this? Just that younger gays have sexual encounters with somewhat older guys? That’s not that much different from what happens with young women, who very often start out having sex with somewhat older guys. Now my own sense of these things is that there really is an age too young to be having sex with anyone, and that older guys (or women) who pressure really young teens into bed should have the book thrown at them. But if a 19 year old and a 17 year old (regardless of gender) are sexually attracted to each other, I don’t see that as a dreadful thing to be labeled “pedesasty” and fretted about. And at least the gays are not producing unplanned babies to be aborted, or else supported in dysfunctional single parent households.

Most people who quote the APA in support of their views has never *read* science!

Define “Most people.” If possible, name them.

Then, offer some specific statements quoting the APA. Identify the author, and specify…

…how much and what “science” the author has read.

Really Heather, you toss around the most vapid generalities as Gospel Truth, without the slightest shred of either evidence or reasoning.

It MAY be true, although I doubt it. What you have offered is all in your own mind.

JonF: Well said, sir. And as for Roman Catholic doctrine, if its not (in my youth some Catholics believed it was), then substitute any controversial doctrine the church DOES uphold. The Mad Lib will make perfect sense.

JonF: I’m not talking about younger/older gay dating trends. I’m talking about pederasty causing boys to develop and act upon homosexual desires. This is extremely well documented within the survivor community and the psychiatric / therapeutic fields. Since 20% of males experience sexual abuse, and the subsequent changes in desire / behavior are quite common among them, that’s a significant chunk of the same-sex encounters going on out there.

Again, it isn’t fair that ignorant primitive anger-addicted abnormalists like Orson Card and John Hagee ended up being right by accident. But a lot of things in life aren’t fair.

Re: However, if normalizing homosexuality causes more same-sex sexual harassment in any given environment, liberals believe that this is not a problem

JonF says: Oh, good grief, what a load of stinking swill! Liberals do not think sexual harassment is a good thing ever.

You are wrong because there are liberals (of all orientation stripes) who are practicing sexual harassment and they don’t think it’s a problem. Ditto for the ones enabling them and covering numerous cases up. Your stereotype of liberals as all do-gooders is not in touch with reality.

Second, it doesn’t matter what you think about sexual harassment, because you will never change the people who are harassing and you aren’t going to stop them either. Your views are only encouraging and enabling them. That’s what happens in reality when you tell millions of people there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, porn, hookups.

And if we look at the BSA, what I described is exactly the position of liberals. It doesn’t matter how much more sexual harassment and exploitation will happen with the normalization of homosexuality, because the latter is the priority. It’s the same thing everywhere else.

JonF says: This riff of “liberals don’t have morals” (because they have different moral standards than yours) reminds me of the Romans complaining that the Christians were atheists since, hey, they weren’t worshiping the Roman gods.

It’s the same thing as saying that NAMBLA simply has “different morals” or people who want to legalize prostitution or adult incest. Having different morals is exactly immoral.

JonF says: I am trying very not hard to trespass on our host’s standards, as he has chosen to welcome you here in the name of open debate, but your obsession with gays is neither morally nor intellectually healthy.

“Oh, good grief, what a load of stinking swill! ”

You are clearly against open debate. In an open debate, you don’t silence other people – that’s what open means. And if you can’t write something while maintaining standards, I hope your comments will be censored.

Critiquing your harmful sexuality agenda is not an “obsession;” it’s very good work. And it is quite morally and intellectually healthy.

[Note from Rod: In tone, at least, this debate has reached an end. Let's move on, and please do our best to speak in a somewhat less hectoring and more charitable manner. -- RD]

“Most people who quote the APA in support of their views has never *read* science!”

Siarlys Jenkins says: Define “Most people.”

Most people – what part of “most” is unclear? The majority of people that I’ve ever come across mentioning the APA.

Siarlys Jenkins says: Then, offer some specific statements quoting the APA. Identify the author, and specify… …how much and what “science” the author has read.

Most people are not published authors. And certainly not in psychology and certainly not regarding homosexuality. And they have not read science. Yet they have blind faith in the APA, and they mention it quite often.

The classic quote is: “The APA said there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and homosexuality is not a mental illness. Therefore homosexuality is normal and it is equal to heterosexuality. All therapy related to helping someone with a homosexual problem is a horrible thing and must be banned.” Consequently, anyone who disagrees with any of this must be a horrible bigot.

If you ask how did the APA prove every other position or theory about homosexuality is wrong, they can’t answer – because the APA never did for a lot of other scientific positions about homosexuality, but they don’t even know that. And you ask them to explain what causes a person to have homosexual dynamics and they can’t answer. Because they don’t know science. And neither does the APA. If you ask them who has done what kind of therapy and what were the results, they don’t know either.

I suppose the above is your profile, but you can always prove me wrong.

Siarlys Jenkins says: Really Heather, you toss around the most vapid generalities as Gospel Truth, without the slightest shred of either evidence or reasoning.

Funny, that’s a perfect description of yourself.

You have not provided a shred of evidence or reasoning proving that what I described is wrong.

There were a lot of great responses for opposing marriage of people who choose to have homosexual marriages.

I am not familiar with Science Fiction writer. I remember my love affair with science fiction began with my first Tom Swift book, but as one who poured through science fiction on a weekly basis, at my peak five books a week, from cover to cover, I am a bit dubious as to Oscar Scott Card’s station as the best science fiction author.

Ha. and I am speaking out of the blind as I have not read his work, but I am aghast, that anyone could replace Clark, Asimov, Heinlein, Gunn, Bradbury, Pohl, Huxley and the slew of authors, Le Guinn, in Science fiction Four, or the Nebula series, simply shocked and amazed, such are the musings of an old man.

Now maybe Stranger in a Strangeland is a bit much for a fifth or sixth grader to tackle, but it’s complexities took me to new heights of human understanding and thought. But all in all,

I am delighted that sanity may return to what Superman really meant. That the rhetorical invasion of deconstructionists, amoralists, moral relativists, is subsiding for that old school hero, who stands for the ideal to shoot for instead of failings we settle for nihilsm.

I willhave to read some of Mr. Card’s work. Nice to know you can hold a view in opposition to liberals and still get hired for performance and potential.

I still have seen any evidence of this legal discrimination against thos who choose a lifestyle in contradiction to nature.

I did learn from this story that DC turned Batwoman into a lesbian in 2006. I had not realized that DC Comics characters were sexual. A lot has changed since I was into superhero comics back in the 1970s.

Certain;y whether or not the characters are sexual, they are pretty heavily sexualized all around.

You have not provided a shred of evidence or reasoning proving that what I described is wrong.

I didn’t pretend to. I asked you to speak to how and why and on what basis your assertions might be taken seriously as accurate, plausible or reliable. And now I know the answer.

I suppose the above is your profile, but you can always prove me wrong.

I try not to have a profile, but I am generally highly skeptical of ANYTHING that comes out of psychology. There are genuine, documented, organic disorders in neurological or mental functioning, but those are a small portion of what psychologists and psychiatrists talk about. A lot of the field is dubious, because it requires defining how people should THINK, to establish a norm.

As to homosexuality, I find it reasonably convincing, as a reasonably informed non-expert, that homosexuality is a biological deviation from a rather obvious norm, but that its causes are not at all clear, and are probably legion. I don’t particularly want to encourage it as just a reasonable lifestyle choice, but I see little purpose, and much harm, in trying to blame people whose hormones respond to individuals of their own sex, or to restrict the manner they choose to live their lives.

But is it representative? Did you know that statistically insignificant anecdotal samples can be representative? It’s not the size that matters, it’s how representative they are that matters here.

Unless you have a statistically significant result that differs from my description, all you have is an empty claim based on your imagination that this sample is not representative.

What information about most people who quote the APA do you have that contradicts what I said?

You have nothing. You don’t prove I’m wrong or unreliable by saying “I don’t think this is true, based on no evidence.” Your claim that a small sample cannot, by default, be representative in any way is hogwash.

But thank you for clarifying that your views are based on incorrect dogmas about samples.

“I asked you to speak to how and why and on what basis your assertions might be taken seriously as accurate, plausible or reliable. And now I know the answer.”

If your “knowing” is based on telling yourself “I have no evidence, but this must not be true, and the proof that it’s wrong or unreliable is because I said so,” then yes, that’s how much you will ever be capable of “knowing.”

Your personal circle of acquaintances MAY be representative, but we have no way of knowing that they ARE. A statistically significant sample, chosen according a rigorous methodology, is highly likely to be representative. Your circle of acquaintances is not.

I won’t even attempt to prove you wrong. I have amply satisfied myself, and, I suspect, most other rational readers, that you have established nothing. You MAY be right in your conclusion, but there is no evidence to sustain your hopeful hypothesis. Therefore, there is nothing to refute. We simply don’t have any idea. I claim no more than that.

Siarlys Jenkins says: Your personal circle of acquaintances MAY be representative, but we have no way of knowing that they ARE. A statistically significant sample, chosen according a rigorous methodology, is highly likely to be representative. Your circle of acquaintances is not.

You’re wrong again. The long list of people that I have come across mentioning the APA is much larger than any “personal circle of acquaintances.”

You are just assuming blindly that the people I am referring to are not representative of “most people who mention the APA” and you are assuming this based on *no evidence*, including making wrong assumptions about who is included in this group of “people whom I have seen mention the APA.”

Even if we were only considering the people in my personal circle of acquaintances, there is no rational reason why they couldn’t be representative. It’s not a question of likelihood, it’s a question if they are representative or not. In other words, it doesn’t matter if the chances that they are representative are 5% or 95%, it matters if they are.

“but we have no way of knowing that they ARE. ”

You’re wrong in respect to two other points. What you don’t know doesn’t change what this group of people are and how representative they are. Simply because you don’t know, it doesn’t make my assertion unreliable or inaccurate. This is why I asked you – What information about most people who quote the APA do you have that contradicts what I said? Nothing. Nothing you know serves to contradict what I said.

Second, about it being plausible. It’s obvious that the majority of people in society are not able to evaluate scientific studies and to perform them. We don’t need any study to know this; we know that only a small group of people do this. And the APA is very much in the public eye, and it gets quoted constantly, by a very large number of people – especially as the authority who established that homosexuality is Normal. So a lot of people quote it and they have no ability to evaluate science; and the majority of them do not read real science, in part, because they wouldn’t be able to understand most of it.

You claiming that the majority of people who mentions the APA are scientists or real readers of science is completely out of touch with reality.

Heather, you and Church Lady share a style of argument that reduces itself to pontification. Yours is perhaps a bit more hallucinatory than hers. “I have spoken, therefore it is so.” There is no point to attempting a serious rational discussion with such childish narcissism. When you have something to say which contains objective points outside your own personal thought process, by all means let us know what they are.